New Zealand cricket legend Glenn Turner - in his own words | The Final Word

Season 15, Episode 29: Across all of our Story Time episodes, a few names come up more than any others. One is Glenn Turner, the New Zealand opening bat who churned out runs from the 1960s to the 1980s. Highest percentage in an innings, carrying his bat, twin tons, a hundred hundreds, a thousand before the end of May? Check, check, keep checking. Beyond the numbers, Glenn is a storyteller with a life to draw from, travelling the world since his teenage years, taking on the establishment to change how players were treated, and winning over an Indian Air Force father-in-law along the way. With Geoff and Bharat at his kitchen table overlooking the lake in Wanaka, a special Final Word.
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[@_tm11]

What an absolute joy to watch and hear Glenn. Thanks Bharat & Geoff for doing this and sharing this fabulous meetup with him.

[@FinalWordCricket]

It was our pleasure, absolutely. Thanks for letting us know.

[@FelixRigg]

Totally agree. Thanks to all for this. Unexpectedly, I laughed out loud quite often.

[@raghuraomgs]

Glenn was the 1st to score 100s against every county. Playing for worcestershire he scored 100s against every county and playing for NZ he scored a 100 against his county worcestershire

[@FinalWordCricket]

Another magical Turner stat!

[@jedmcd56]

My hometown - Wānaka! Hope you enjoyed it Geoff and Bharat 🙏 Great interview too. Legendary cricketer and comes across as very kind and quite funny too!

[@FinalWordCricket]

Yeah, he and Sukhi were great company and very hospitable. A pleasure to visit them.

[@kennethcrowther2277]

One of the best cricketer interviews ive ever seen! Great listening to Glenn's insights after all these years. A man of great integrity, who really did get the shaft from that NZC Board he began under.

[@ajeysangai521]

My gratitude to you guys for this chat. I know in your modesty you will disagree, but cricket owes you for being one if its finest storytellers.

[@FinalWordCricket]

That's very kind. We're just trying to help the stories get told.

[@fxt363]

Absolutely brilliant interview, guys. I remember reading his book 'Century of Centuries' and could only imagine in my mind his style of batting. So glad we have videos of him on KZbin

[@pierrecorreiaafonso8399]

What a sense of humour ... Enjoyed it .. Thanks!

[@FinalWordCricket]

Terrific, wasn't he? Cheers.

[@wickdwitchowest]

What a joy to watch..... and i bet a thrill to record

[@FinalWordCricket]

Yeah, that's a bucket list chat ticked off

[@rayclark3043]

One of our greats..often carried our batting.

[@Spiritkill1]

Great Batsman from New Zealand.

[@guyhornsby9572]

Absolutely glorious interview. A properly lovely man and a NP legend ❤

[@shreyans-j]

what an absolute gem of a conversation with an incredible person and a very underrated storyteller I'd say!!

[@FinalWordCricket]

Absolutely, we didn't know what kind of conversation it would turn out to be, but he was a delight.

[@grahamfildes2402]

Blimey, Glenn’s mentions of those Worcester names took me right back to the mid-late 60s when we lived there. Our family all had memberships and we experienced one of their most successful periods at New Road. He always wore the green cap and opened AND was immensely reliable to keep the scoreboard moving. Great chat Geoff, well done!

[@FinalWordCricket]

Thanks Graham, that must have been quite the time watching that team go around. We always enjoy getting to New Road.

[@grahamfildes2402]

@@FinalWordCricket It was! Now here in Eltham long time ! Cheers…

[@electriceyepictures4805]

Terrific interview with an iconoclast and underrated NZ icon! Warm, funny and ever flinty, Turner is a great self effacing storyteller and wonderfully knowledgable on the game. Thank you Geoff and Bharat - great job :)

[@FinalWordCricket]

Thanks so much. It's a real pleasure for us to get to chat with some of the game's great people. Glad you enjoyed it.

[@PiyushSharma-qx2sn]

❤ that's why i love this channel and i am big admier of Geoff

[@FinalWordCricket]

Thanks a lot, nice to have you here

[@BigAmp]

What a delightful interview. In the 1970s day in and day out Glenn Turner was pretty well the best in the world. If I recall he scored more first class runs in that decade than anyone else. Good explanation about his offside play against short of a length bowling. I do recall watching him and thinking he was spooked but looks like I was wrong and his style of play was quite skilful; rather like what Bradman tried to do against bodyline. So nice to see that he is still in good nick.

[@palashsasidharan5710]

Brilliant stuff. Thanks guys

[@FinalWordCricket]

Thanks for watching, good to have you.

[@markagerman1223]

Fantastic interview guys, hopefully we can see a lot more in the future 👍

[@FinalWordCricket]

Thanks Mark, got quite a few in the back catalogue - check the interviews channel on here, or there's more still on the audio podcast feed.

[@suki0venkat]

What a player! He was the batsman and Hadlee was the bowler. NZ was a two-man army.

[@VSV659]

An amazing batsman with 2 amazing records -1,000 runs in England before the end of May, and once Turner hit 143 runs out of a team’s total of 169 all out.

[@tonylove4800]

Three: the most first-class runs in the 1970s.

[@pauldavenport9427]

Loved this, well done boys👏👏 Great anecdotes..."he couldn't bat his eyelids!"😂 Couldn't help thinking there might have been fisticuffs if this interview had been done back in the day - "you've left a lot out"🤣🥊

[@FinalWordCricket]

He probably had a few stoushes, let's be honest.

[@petegittins91]

Great listen! What a bloke. Before my time but it sounds like he was some player too

[@FinalWordCricket]

He really was. Seriously underrated these days, probably because he didn't get to play as many Tests as others.

[@barrynichols2846]

You filmed it like an undercover sting operation.

[@FinalWordCricket]

All about audio - the video was very much an afterthought!

[@wickdwitchowest]

I think it felt more natural. Like you are sitting back listening to the 'good stories'

[@kerryobrien71]

I like these interviews with older ex-players. Glenn was one of our first high performing international batters. But he was a poor coach and player manager/selector who did a lot of harm to players because of his arrogance. He was the opposite of people like Baz, Kane W. He would criticise and form an unchangeable view of players he didn't think fitted. Its telling that he states that he thinks the landscape/environment is more trustworthy than people. It emphasises his inability and/or desire to understand the people around him, or have insight into his own weaknesses as a coach/manager/selector. He criticised the appointment of McCullum to captain of Blackcaps, despite the positive culture and attitude change to the team, Williamson then benefitted from this when he took over as captain. Read Glenn's articles about cricket in past decade it is all criticism, 'Holier than Thou' commentary.

[@karannagpal1112]

We need more stories about Barbados! 😂

[@FinalWordCricket]

Safe to say we had asked all of the questions that modesty allowed!

[@karannagpal1112]

@@FinalWordCricket oh boo! 🤣 Kidding of course, it was a brilliant interview as always. Gem of a channel with the best cricket content around! 🫶